The Journal
by plausiblecolour
Summary: After the accident, Sam, Tucker, and Danny kept a journal.


Title: The Journal  
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters here or the material of Danny Phantom. This work was created for fun and not for profit.  
Fandom: Danny Phantom  
Pairings: Gen  
Warnings: None  
Additional Notes: None  
Description: After the accident, Sam, Tucker, and Danny kept a journal.

The Journal

The flash of Danny's transformation lit up the entire room, briefly casting everything in an odd glimmer. The edges of Danny's form glowed like the edges of the sun.

Sam was glad they had the foresight to close the blinds.

A sputtering, strange noise caught her attention. She looked at the smoking gadget in Danny's hand. He barely held it together, the pieces coming apart by the wires.

"Ow," he said. A piece sparked, biting at one of his fingers.

" _My gadget_!" Tucker wailed, leaping to his feet. He tore the charred remains from Danny's hands. "My poor baby…"

Sam sighed. She reached for the journal and pen left on Danny's bed, and opened the journal up to the page marked.

" _Experiment number one-hundred-and-six_ ," she murmured, scribbling down her words, " _success. When transforming, if in direct contact with anything, the object is…_ " And she paused for a moment, thinking, and then crossed out and rewrote her sentence. " _The physical form of an object is influenced when in direct contact of the transformation…_ "

"You _monster_ ," Tucker wailed at Danny. He was on his knees, cradling the remains of his gadget to his chest, cooing slightly. "There, there," he whispered to it when he wasn't glaring at Danny.

"You have like _fifty_ of those," Danny said.

"But she was _special_!"

"Then why'd you use her for the experiment?" Danny huffed. He threw up his hands, exasperated, before floating to the ceiling. He turned his back to the floor, crossing his arms. Sam heard him muttering to the stars he'd stuck up there.

Sam rolled her eyes, tilting her head down to hide her growing grin under her dark bangs. She turned back to the journal.

She read for a few minutes before she felt the strange coldness of Danny. He floated just above her, reading over her shoulder. The wisps of his white hair floated like they were caught underwater, his eyes reminding her of deep, emerald seas. He met her gaze for a moment before they both turned back to the journal and the lists scrawled there.

They'd thrown together the journal a week after the accident. At first, they were only going to write down the most obvious changes they'd noticed in Danny: the intangibility, the invisibility, the flight, and, well, the _transformation_. The list went on and on, but those were the most obvious. After that, they'd decided to test how far his powers could go - and then they were asking questions. What exactly _happened_ to Danny when he transformed? How could he be both half-human and half-ghost? _What was he_?

Sam and Tucker had shared, privately, that they were worried their explorations would resemble the elder Fenton's own experiments too much, the science too disregarding of life. But when the idea was brought to Danny, his eyes had widened.

"Yeah, let's do it," he'd said, and he hadn't changed his mind and told them _Actually, I don't think I can do this_. He hadn't exploded in pent-up rage since starting because he didn't want to disappoint them but he couldn't _do this anymore_. He was with them - and he remained with them - every step of the way, suggesting ideas and making corrections where he saw fit.

For safety, they titled the journal "Study Notes". And the first few pages _were_ that - Math and English notes, legitimate analysis on the text they'd been studying in class, _The Catcher in the Rye._ Tucker had been particularly proud of them.

To the average eye, the journal truly _was_ a place Danny kept his study notes.

Until one flicked past the first 10 pages and found notes, details, and sketches on other things… on _ghostly_ things.

They never explicitly wrote Danny's name or showed his face in the sketches - it was just general information. If someone read too deep, they'd just think Danny was weird, or that he was particularly obsessed with the ghost kid, or even that he just had a crush on him, or something else equally hilarious, but _safe_.

The information was just general - just loose enough - that anyone absently reading could _guess_ , but not truly understand, what they were seeing.

"So, what are we doing next?" Tucker asked, plopping down onto the bed next to Sam. The bed dipped under his weight, and Sam readjusted her position so she was leaning on Danny's headboard, Tucker beside her and Danny above them.

"You got over 'her' already?" Sam asked, eyebrows raised.

Tucker shrugged. "Eh. What comes, comes, and what goes, goes."

"Some by a… _shocking_ death," Danny added.

Sam grimaced, and Tucker winced. No one laughed.

"Yeah, I didn't think it was good, either," Danny muttered under his breath.

"Hey," Tucker said, and Sam was almost grateful for the distraction. Tucker's finger jabbed at the page. "What if Danny transforms while touching someone else? D'you think they'd transform, too?"

Collectively, without realising it, they all glanced over at Danny's bedroom bin. The smoking remains of Tucker's gadget gave another spark and the bin twitched.

After a moment, Tucker added conversationally, "On second thought, let's not try that."

"Agreed," Danny said.

Sam didn't bother voicing her own assent before she crossed out the sentence and scribbled _Too dangerous_ next to it, underlining the words three times for good measure.

"Oh, hey, we could try-" Sam started, pointing at the page, when she heard a set of footsteps on the stairs.

Faster than they could blink, Danny transformed back into a human and flopped onto the bed. Sam was sandwiched between Tucker and Danny, and she elbowed Danny to move just as his mom walked in.

"Danny, have you seen…" She stopped, noticing the three of them. She was wiping her gloved hands on a towel, stained with green spots, wearing her usual dark blue suit. "Oh. Hello, Sam, Tucker - I didn't even notice you two walk in!" She gave a short chuckle.

That's because they hadn't. Danny had floated them in through the walls, intangible.

"It be like that, Mrs. Fenton." Tucker shrugged.

Sam barely managed to resist rolling her eyes; Danny gave a solemn nod while Tucker shot Mrs. Fenton a grin.

Danny's mom blinked at them, the lingo lost on her.

"Well," his mom said, "what have you kids been up to?"

"Just studying," Danny said.

They all grinned.

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading.


End file.
